Even as the evidence has piled up documenting the gross, self-enriching ethical lapses of Carolyn Smith during her 14 years as head of the Southeastern Economic Development Corp., a group of Smith's fellow African-Americans continue to insist the redevelopment executive got a raw deal when she was fired earlier this summer.

Some insist she was the victim of blatant racism or, at least, a racial double-standard. Others say the decision of City Councilman Tony Young, who is also black, to push for Smith's ouster is nothing less than a racial betrayal – a betrayal that should be punished by recall.

How depressing. This is lowest-common-denominator, racial-spoils politics.

It appears Smith doesn't have considerable support among the African-American community. But that anyone at all could look at the SEDC debacle and think Smith was wronged is incredible.

Here's what her defenders want: affirmative action for scoundrels.

Aguirre: 'Feud' with mayor something the U-T made up

Feud (noun): a bitter, often prolonged quarrel.

In a letter to the editor published last week, Mike Aguirre said the idea that he doesn't get along with Jerry Sanders is hooey – a “Union-Tribune-manufactured 'feud.' ”

Huh? Over the past three years, Mike has called the mayor corrupt; has tried to take the lead on policy questions as if he were mayor 1,000 times; has repeatedly sandbagged the mayor at the last second on a variety of big issues; has on a daily basis promoted the idea that the mayor is the servant of an establishment that cares only about rich downtown business interests, etc. etc. etc.

In return, Jerry Sanders has put out the word through his staff that Aguirre is impossible to deal with; prevents reforms he used to champion unless he gets to take credit; threatens those who don't do his bidding, etc. etc. etc. His staff has also routinely distributed paperwork and various hard evidence of all the ways Mike is monkey-wrenching at City Hall.

Oh, yeah, there's no “feud” at all, Mike. I think the proper term is “war.”

Mike may try to rewrite his history of the last three years to secure re-election, but stuff like this is so blatant that it will only induce laughs.

Four months to go. Woo. Hoo.

If only Keith Olbermann were a public-policy 'seamhead,' too

Back when Keith Olbermann was an ESPN sportscaster, he was about the highest-profile baseball “seamhead” of all. A seamhead is a stat-obsessed fan who sides firmly with the empirical researchers who have been at war with traditionalists for years over the wisdom of many traditional baseball practices – i.e., sacrifice bunts with one or no outs – that look foolish when subject to the rigorous analysis long seen in the business world. Olbermann belongs, or at least used to, to the Society for American Baseball Research, which is Seamhead Central.

The more I watch him in his Angry Political Pundit incarnation at MSNBC, the more I wish he'd be a public-policy seamhead, too. This struck me the other day when I saw him radiate disdain for the idea of expanding nuclear power to end U.S. dependence on foreign energy sources.

This is simply not in the category of Self-Evidently Stupid Proposals. Japan and France have shown the upside of an emphasis on nuclear power, and European greens are steadily embracing nuclear power as perhaps the readiest alternative to the fossil fuels that cause global warming.

But, no, Olbermann's a man of the left – the U.S. left – and he's not going to deviate from its orthodoxy.

Too bad. If he was as much of a seamhead when it came to public policy as he is with baseball, he would come to realize significant chunks of the left's agenda don't have an empirical basis.

The trashing of Wal-Mart as somehow being bad for poor people is another great example. Wal-Mart does more to help poor families make ends meet than anyone else in the private sector. If its jobs are so horrible, why does it have no problem filling them even when unemployment is tiny? Among the few on the left who get this is Barack Obama's chief economist, a guy named Jason Furman.

Another egregious example is with public education. The left has essentially outsourced its views on fixing schools to teachers unions, which hate charter schools and other reforms sought by inner-city parents and instead want a better-funded status quo. Among the few on the left who realize this is nuts is Nation magazine pundit Eric Alterman, who points out all the ways New York City's teachers union subverts reform.

This would be obvious to a public-policy seamhead. Just as the right's agenda includes gibberish that falls apart when looked at empirically – don't get me started on corporate subsidies or the way social conservatives blame gays for straight parents' problems raising their kids – the left's has plenty of nonsense, too.

Keith Olbermann should get this. Instead – and this should really gall him – he's even more predictable than the guy he calls the Worst Person in the World. Yes, even Fox News' Bill O'Reilly has a more open mind than Olbermann. Lately, O'Reilly has sounded like a populist left-winger in his bashing of oil companies.

If Olbermann deviates from his party's line to such a degree on any issue, that's news to me.